My Life as a Tart

When Mike was a new pastor we attended a week-end gathering just for new pastors and their spouses.  The bishop of the Montana Synod was there, as well as quite a few pastor/spouse couples.

One of the things memorable to me was a little communion service we attended.

OK, I don't remember the parts that I should remember but I do remember that when they "broke the bread" it was actually a hotdog bun!

Another thing I remember was an informal gathering with the bishop.

He was talking about how we needed to grow into our new communities beyond just the church we (and by "we" I mean Mike) were serving.

His point was that we needed to lead our lives as anyone else in the community, meeting others outside the church and expanding on our own interesets.  Most of us had already been in our new roles for up to a year so he decided to involve us in the conversation.

He went around the room asking us to each name something we'd already been involved in that was outside our church circle.

When it came to me I said, "Well, I've been a tart."

Of course, that caught his interest.

Here's the story...

I had been invited to play a bit part in a local musical.  I was told I would be an extra, a saloon girl just singing in the chorus.  Four other women were also talked into these roles.  One was my good friend, Gwen.  We had a blast!  Gwen was also new to the community and was teaching at the elementary school.  The other two women were a lot of fun as well.  One was a physical therapist and the other a nurse.

As the rehearsals went on, apparently someone thought it was kind of funny that the new pastor's wife and the new elementary teacher were playing these roles.  The play was "Paint Your Wagon".  I do not think I had ever seen that play or movie before but I soon came to realize the "saloon girls" were actually ladies of the evening! 

Another woman in town was a dance teacher and they called upon her to incorporate our characters into the play a bit more.  She choreographed 4 dances and taught them to us.  It was so much fun!  Someone else found costumes for us, complete with fishnet stockings!  The local newspaper guy came and took our pictures and put us in the weekly paper.  Unfortunately, I've lost my copy of that professional photo and my only proof is this poor photo.  Nevertheless, I think you can see that we were enjoying the attention.  I am the second one from the left.  My friend, Gwen, is on the far right.

So there you have it...my life as a tart!

Medals and Memories

Yesterday was not our typical day.  Mike and I ventured out of town to visit one of his sisters, Karen, and her husband, Greg.  They'd moved into a new home awhile ago and we finally got ourselves in gear enough to go see it.  We enjoyed visiting with them!

Karen entertained us showing family treasures.  I'll start right out by saying the most fun for me was seeing Carol's (my mother-in-law) old swimsuit, complete with ruffles on the hinder.  Yes, I said hinder.  Karen also had Carol's old square dance dress.  I had a hard time envisioning Carol square dancing but I'm not sure why that is.  She's tried a lot of things over the years and still takes classes on new things.  Carol is a very elegant lady and I suppose that is why these old items were fun to me.  I got a glimpse of her in another era.

Karen also had a lot of their Dad's military things.  George died way too early.  He died when we'd been married only 1 month.  Of course Mike has lots of memories of his Dad but they never got too far into knowing each other as adults.  It was precious to see Mike going through these things of his Dad's.  I think it made him feel a bit closer to him. 

Our son-in-law, Eric, is a curator at a veteran's museum.  He and Mike are going to go through some of George's military things together.  There are medals and other things that we know mean something.  Eric's head is full of knowledge of such things and he also knows how to do the research to find out more.  Mike is excited to show them to Eric.

Mike knows some of the stories.  I see the pride in his eyes when he talks about his Dad being involved in freeing prisoners from concentration camps.  If George never did another thing in his life, that in itself would've earned him hero status as far as I'm concerned!

It is rather a week of remembering veterans around here.  Eric has been working hard to prepare for the opening of a Vietnam War Veterans display at the museum.  Tomorrow is the big day!  We plan to go to help honor some of those who were treated with contempt when they returned from war.  They were given a job to do and they did it.  We need to thank them.  We're proud of Eric for all his hard work.